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US 5,708,468 AGranted
Image forming device utilizing hot melt ink
AssigneeBrother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorNaoto Iwao
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In an image forming device, a hot melt ink is preliminarily heated by a heater, the melted ink is retained in an ink retaining roller made of a porous material and having apertures formed in the radial direction, and then melted under heating by a thermal head and transferred on a recording medium. The ink supply device of the image forming device can use inks efficiently with no waste and thereby reduce the running cost.
Claims24
An image forming device comprising:
- a hot melt ink member;
- heating means for melting ink from the hot melt ink member abutting the hot melt ink member;
- ink retaining means disposed adjacent to the heating means for absorbing and retaining the ink melted by the heating means;
- recording medium support means for supporting a recording medium for printing thereon;
- and
- thermal recording means disposed adjacent to the ink retaining means and the recording medium support means for heating the ink retained in the ink retaining means, thereby melting and transferring the ink onto the recording medium to effect printing.
3 more elements
A printing apparatus using hot melt ink, comprising:
- at least one hot melt ink member;
- a heater facing the at least one hot melt ink member that melts ink from the hot melt ink member;
- at least one porous ink retaining member disposed adjacent to the heater that absorbs and retains the ink melted by the heater;
- a recording medium support that is adapted to support a recording medium thereon for printing;
- and
- a thermal head facing the at least one ink retaining member that heats the ink retaining member to melt the ink retained therein and thereby transfer the ink onto the recording medium.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.